As a matter of fact, this is one of the best times of the year to reinforce all that learning that has taken place from September until now.

Children can work on their reading skills and have fun on the sites featured below.

They won’t even realise all the skills they’re learning.

See how Christmas is celebrated all over the world by checking out http://www.whychristmas.

com/cultures/.

Just click on the flag next to the name of the country to find fun facts about the country.

Student get cool geography lessons when they pull up information by clicking green countries on a map.

The History Channel offers a site with essays and videos about Christmas carols, Christmas celebrations, Christmas gift giving, Santa Claus and the origins of the candy cane at http://www.history.

com/topics/christmas/ history-of-christmas.

Did you know that Santa used to wear many different coloured clothes until a Coca Cola advertisement in the 1930s dressed him in red? On this site, students learn a lot about Christmas history.

Following directions can mean the difference between success and failure in life and school. Christmas offers a fun way to teach this skill to children through holiday baking.

The site below offers baking projects for children. Children learn the gift of giving when creating an apple pie cookie kit in a jar. Making Rudolph shortbread cookies teaches mathematics skills. Mini elf doughnuts teach the concept of scale, melted snowmen teach creativity.

Each recipe is rated for difficulty and each recipe provides the amount of time it takes to make the treat.

http://www.bbcgoodfood.

com/recipes/collection/ christmas-kids Children can practise their reading skills with a fun, interactive

The victims have been identified as Keylon Chapman, 23, of Mason Hall and Trevaughn Noray, 21, of Moriah. A third occupant of the vehicle, Quincy Daniel, 23, of Moriah was up to press time warded in a critical condition at the Scarborough General Hospital. He is said to be unconscious.

Tobago police reported that at about four o’clock yesterday morning, a red car with the three occupants was proceeding along the highway when on nearing the Magdalena Grande Beach Resort, the driver lost control of the vehicle which veered off the road, smashed into several light poles befors coming to a halt in bushes.

The accident left parts of the the area without electricity for several hours as overhead electrical wires were pulled down by the car’s impact.

Both Chapman and Noray were pronounced dead at the scene.

Firemen later freed Daniel from the mangled wreck of the vehicle and when it was found that he was still alive, he was rushed to the Scarborough General Hospital for emergency treatment.

Meanwhile, the bodies of Chapman and Noray were viewed by the district medical officer who ordered them removed to the hospital’s mortuary for autopsies, which will most likely be done today. Efforts to reach head of Tobago Division Snr Supt Joanne Archie for a comment yesterday proved futile. Investigations are continuing.

The accused boy appeared in the Couva Magistrates’ court last Friday charged with manslaughter and was granted bail.

The charge alleges that at about 6.30 pm on November 26, Lewis of Freeport was shot in the head shortly after leaving a house where a prayer service was in session. He died on the spot. Lewis was at the time on his way to a snackette to buy a soft drink.

Homicide detectives conducted investigations and arrested the 13-year-old. A file was prepared and submitted to the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions for advice.

On Friday last, the 13-year-old appeared before Magistrate Cheryl Ann Antoine who read the charge to him that he unlawfully killed Lewis. The charge was laid indictably and as a result, the boy was not called upon to plead.

Attorney Frank Gittens announced that he was representing the boy and made a plea for bail to be granted.

The attorney submitted to Magistrate Antoine, that under new judge’s rules for children, a child shall must only be kept in custody for an offence as a last resort and for the shortest period of time. Gittens also submitted to the magistrate that the accused boy is not likely to abscond because he had co-operated with the police throughout their investigations.

Magistrate Antoine granted the boy bail in the sum of $50,000 with the step-father as surety. The case was adjourned to January 10.

After the accused teen’s step-father signed the surety, the accused boy was allowed to leave the courthouse.

Police were also on the scene quickly, arriving about ten minutes after the fire fighters, said SJBA Public Relations Officer Abrahim Ali. “Thank God, otherwise that building might have burned down.

A panel van did catch fire though.

It was parked close to the gate so when the men; seen on CCTV footage, threw something flammable into the compound, some landed on the van and the entire back of the vehicle got damaged. One tyre got scorched too.” Ali noted that not only was this the third overall incident of arson in the San Juan area in less than a month, it was the second time the D&J business was targeted. “This warehouse is owned by the same man Dugan Singh whose retail space, D&J Budget Mart Limited (D&J), was set on fire on November 21 and looted a few days later, when he removed the security detail.

Mr Singh had started selling from his warehouse after fire destroyed his other business but now, I don’t know what he’s going to do,” Ali lamented.

Last week Tuesday in an interview with Newsday, Ali said “reliable sources” had informed him of their belief that criminal elements, ‘inspired’ by the November 21 incident, had set fire to ‘Benefit the People Supermarket’ off the Eastern Main Road, Barataria in the pre-dawn hours of December 12. A video posted to social media showed men and women unashamedly walking out of the smouldering business with everything from rum to baby diapers to a variety of food items.

In addition to putting its members on high alert, the SJBA will today make another request to meet with Head of the North Eastern Division, Senior Superintendent Surendra Sagramsingh, to discuss measures meant to “nip this disturbing trend in the bud”, Ali stated. As of late yesterday afternoon, Singh said he was “undecided” about re-opening his business today. He was also “undecided” about whether or not to relocate it, given that there was one incident of arson and looting and what seems to have been an attempted repeat of such.

The new TT national football coach has been given an ultimatum by TTFA president David John-Williams to get immediate results or get fired. Saintfiet must turn things around in the next two World Cup qualifiers in March (Panama and Mexico)…or else.

To his credit, the new coach seems to have taken the bull by the horns. He has cancelled Christmas holidays for his players to train for two friendlies against Nicaragua on December 27 and December 30. Will it be enough to save a stuttering Trinidad and Tobago World Cup qualifying campaign that has already started with two defeats — to Costa Rica and Honduras? Time will tell.

Saintfiet has a record of turning around flagging teams. About six years ago, he took Namibia up 34 places in the FIFA world rankings, taking that team to multiple victories and draws after it had a dismal record of winning only one game out of 12 in the months before his arrival. After these performances, the Namibian’s dubbed Saintfiet “The Saint”, and one newspaper went so far as to call him “The Messiah”.

Such is Saintfiet’s effectiveness as a coach that in 2012, he was able to remotely orchestrate a 3-1 victory for Zimbabwe while stuck in Namibia due to work permit issues. However, in 2014, the Belgian was fired as coach of South Africa’s Free State Stars after poor results. A three-year contract with Togo signed in 2015 ended early in 2016. And his tenure as Bangladesh coach did not start well: the team lost 0-5 away to Maldives.

The new coach will not have much time to implement his philosophy and new strategies. While he has orchestrated many aboutturns, the fact remains he has no experience in leading a team to a senior FIFA World Cup. In his first few days, however, Saintfiet continues to show the kind of mettle required to bring about results for better or worse. He made a bold decision to drop out-of-form captain Kenwyne Jones from the training squad completely.

The coach is keen on playing a faster style of play with speedy strikers, an approach that he craved while at Bangladesh. No doubt he will be aided by the fact that he has Russell Latapy and Jamal Shabazz as assistant coaches to help ease his transition into his new role. They will provide local knowledge of players.

Many have noted Saintfiet has experience coaching African teams. This has brought some scrutiny over his performance with these teams. He resigned in October 2011 as Ethiopia coach after a 2-2 draw with Nigeria. Soon later, in a move that raised eyebrows, he was appointed the technical director of Nigeria. However, the Nigerian ministry of sport later opted to have a Nigerian appointed to the post instead.

Even Saintfiet’s time with Young Africans SC was chequered.

Though he guided the club to win the 2012 CECAFA Club Cup/Kagame Interclub Cup, he was let go after two league games following disagreement with the club board.

None of this, however, can be taken as a definitive verdict on Saintfiet’s skills or lack thereof. And only with time will his impact on the Trinidad and Tobago team be made clear. Already ripples are being felt.

When news emerged that goalkeeper Jan-Michael Williams, midfielders Sean De Silva and Nathaniel Garcia were called up for training on Tuesday last by Saintfiet, ahead of the December international matches with Nicaragua, complaints were aired. According to Brent Sancho, owner of Central FC, Saintfiet was rather unsaintly in his tone and approach. But another team official said the coach simply expressed the view that there needs to be more professionalism, not acrimony, in terms of commitment by players. It’s all a rollicking start and we say TT must give “The Saint” a chance to whip the national team into shape.

Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana — Race and Politics in Two Plural Societies by Ann Marie Bissessar and John Gaffar La Guerre IN THE 1956-1976 period, the appeal to race was seen as strident and resulted in tangible inter-ethnic tension, particularly between people of African and Indian descent and characterised as the era of crisis in such relations.

In Trinidad and Tobago it covered the contentious elections of 1956 and 1961, which saw hostility between the two ethnic groups reach a high point.

In Guyana this period included the elections of 1957, 1961, 1964 and the allegedly rigged elections of 1968. In the years between the elections of 1961 and 1964, violent race riots erupted, pitting Afro-Guyanese against Indo-Guyanese.

The study asserts that in the period from the mid-1980s and beyond, the significance of race had changed in determining political alignments and outcomes. It seeks to analyse the determinants and influences which conspired to produce what it deemed “the transformation of the race factor”. Interestingly, this chapter (5) is titled “The Triumph over Race”, which has been attributed in Trinidad and Tobago to such factors as globalisation, changes in demographic ratios, the emergence of new elites spawned by changes in the education system and the economy, and the intrusion of gender.

In the case of Guyana, the death of Forbes Burnham and the demise of his authoritarian regime ushered in a period in which the new leadership of the Afro-Guyanese ruling party had to respond to international pressure for free and transparent elections and local demand for improved economic conditions and greater freedom yet it had to consolidate the support of the minority Afro-Guyanese population.

In this context in the two countries, racial alignments had to be re-engineered and modified and, in the process, the need to seek affiliations and forge accommodations and coalitions to win elections became imperative.

Consequently, the overt recourse to racial appeal had to be restrained, though coded messages continued to have significance.

This period saw the emergence of the NAR Government and later the PP Government in Trinidad and Tobago, which in effect were both coalitions. Guyana witnessed the return of the PPP/Civic coalition administration.

In terms of analysis, the study denotes a theoretical difference between race and ethnicity but seems to suggest ethnicity subsumes race and therefore the terms can be used interchangeably, which may lead to some uncertainty and lack of clarity.

It raises the question of whether ethnicity may be independent of race in determining political allegiance. Race may not always dictate the political party which a group or sector of it chooses to support as in the case of the urban Indo-Trinidadian Christian or Muslim who vote for the Afro- based political party.

It would appear that the latter group may be swayed by cultural and economic considerations (education, levels of interaction, religion, class etc) and hence ethnicity as opposed to race as influencing political identification.

Moreover, the issue of the political affiliation, and its basis, of the ever expanding mixed population needs more in-depth investigation in determining the salience of race as against ethnicity among this group. Support for a political party based on race would be problematic in light of their mixed background.

With political choice virtually restricted to two race-based political parties, it would appear that cultural affinity to the mass support base of either of the two major parties and hence ethnicity might be a more significant consideration in determining the political leaning of a majority of this mixed group.

The division of the study into specific periods and their general characterisation with respect to the relationship between race and politics may be convenient for the pur p os e s of general analysis but may tend to o b s c u r e the reality of latent ethnic consciousness.

According to Dillon, the aim of this initiative is to ascertain how many officers are in the service, where they are deployed and how best they can be re-deployed to protect and serve with pride. He added that he expects the firm or the competent authorities to be hired shortly to carry out the audit and added that a local team comprising of police officers and people from the Ministry of National security will be deployed to assist with the UK firm or cops in this venture.

Newsday understands there are supposed to be 7, 000 police officers in the police service but because of persons proceeding on pre-retirement leave, vacation leave, long leave, emergency leave and sick leave the service has not always been up to its maximum man power strength.

According to Dillon, “This manpower audit is long overdue and we are hoping to have this competent authority on board so that we can move along swiftly to get the information and to re-deploy the manpower resources in a competent manner so that all of TT could be served properly.” The Minister said he was still awaiting word from the British High Commission but assured they were working assiduously to have the competent authority chosen for the job.

People have been buying conchs as the preferred choice of delicacy to put on their Christmas table, said vendors Kiran Dhram and Therese Sang. The couple make a living from sales of conchs and yesterday that said business began to boom in the first week of December.

Dhram and Sang use to sell on the roundabout in Caroni just before what is commonly known as the ‘Silver Bridge’. Two months ago they began to experience a pitch in the demand from motorists for conch meat and Sang was encouraged to open her own stall along the Link Road in Tarouba.

Conch is a large-sized sea snail with a shell, but there are conchs which are harvested from lagoons and sweet-water ponds.

A string of conch of about 15, is sold for $100. But recently, there have been reports of vendors selling ‘smelly’ conchs which resulted in Health Inspectors swooping down on them and issuing warnings. Dhram and Sang believe that they are being targeted by the more lucrative dealers in the trade, because conch sales this Christmas seemed to have generated stiff competition.

Sang said, “This is an attempt to bring down our business by jealous vendors. The people who complained are into the same business and they wanted us to close down. This is why they went to the media with a complaint that the conchs were smelling badly.4” Sang and Dhram have taken the conch business a step forward and have launched a facebook page known as “Lagoon Conch”.

Sang said she buys conchs from a supplier in Moruga who goes into the forest where he harvest them from wetlands.

Sang says that around this time of the year and into Carnival season, there is an influx of foreigners to Trinidad and Tobago, and, conch sales soar.

She said that conch meat is eaten raw in salads, or cooked and can be used for burgers, chowders, fritters and gumbo.

“All parts of the conch meat are edible.

Many find only the white meat appetizing,” Dhram said.

Conchs is a favourite in many restaurants as well and recently, chefs have been preparing the meat in quite innovative recipes.

Therefore, police said yesterday, charges are not likely to be slapped against her for wrongful use of police time.

Senior police officers from both the Southern and South-Western Divisions, told Newsday that based on information in the respective stations’ dairies, there were no reports of Barriteau, 35, stating that she was kidnapped and assaulted. “We do not have a report in any station diary recorded, in which Mr Barriteau gave a report that she had been abducted.” Barriteau’s common- law husband Devon Paul, however, had made a report on December 9 at the La Brea Police Station, that Barriteau had been missing. Then subsequently, Paul received information from friends that his common-law wife was at the San Fernando General Hospital. He then went to the hospital where he saw Barriteau, but the woman told her husband that she was abducted by a group of men, assaulted and dropped off at a parang lime at Carat Shed in Marabella.

The couple lives at Sobo Village in La Brea. Since the news broke that she was not longer missing, CCTV footage of a woman in company with an unidentified man liming at the popular Carat Shed circulated on social media.

South-Western police confirmed that when questioned about her whereabouts, Barriteau admitted that she went to lime with some friends. But the senior police officers told Newsday that La Brea Police Station have no reports of her being kidnapped or assaulted. Because she was found, investigations into the missing person’s report, the officers said, were closed.

Hinds expressed his optimism at the annual “Christmas on the Hills” event at the St Barb’s Basketball Court yesterday. He told reporters that when the People’s National Movement (PNM) took office last year in September, the party knew it was on a sticky wicket and has faced some “hostile bowling” during the year that it has been in government.

However, Hinds said the PNM has since “settled into the wicket”, and is not playing any rash shots as it seeks to improve this country’s economic circumstances. He was confident that once all stakeholders join forces with the Government and every one does what they are supposed to do, “we will turn it around.” Hinds said neither the PNM nor the country are strangers to challenging economic times and he remains confident that under the guidance of the Dr Keith Rowley Administration, things will improve going forward.

Reminded of criticisms made by Princes Town MP Barry Padarath about MPs not being assisted by the Social Development Ministry to provide assistance to needy persons in their respective constituencies, Hinds told reporters, “We don’t look to the Government for everything.” He explained that yesterday’s event which was open to all of the children in Laventille was organised with help from community groups and members of the private sector.

Hinds said that notwithstanding the economic challenges which the country faces at this time, it was important for the children of Laventille to get the gift of love for Christmas. Noting the stigma which is often attributed to communities in the country like Laventille, Hinds said it is important to remind people there is a lot of good in these communities and he is all about the upliftment of people.

As he pointed out the presence of a fruit and vegetable booth which the TT Field Naturalists Club at the event, Hinds disclosed that he has been speaking with persons who are trying to promote hydroponics and other types of agriculture which can be done within communities like Laventille.

The minister said while many people think of Laventille as a concrete jungle, there is greenery in the community and this can be put to good use.

Approximately 1,200 children attended yesterday’s event which included storytelling, singing, dancing and other cultural performances.

There was also face painting for the children along with the appearances of popular characters such as the Incredible Hulk, Mickey and Minnie Mouse.